Jack Purvis

John “Jack” Purvis (b. Kokomo, December 11, 1906 – d. San Francisco, March 30, 1962) – Multiple Instrumentalist (primarily a trumpet player) and composer. Although primarily a trumpet player, Purvis was a versatile musician, who played many instruments professionally including trombone, piano, bass and harp. After learning the trombone and trumpet as a youngster in Kokomo, Purvis played with the high school band and with a local dance band called the Pirates, led by Johnny Smith. According to Duncan Schiedt, he joined the Pirates as a teenager right after serving time at a correctional facility in Plainfield (possibly the Indiana Boys’ School). After leaving Kokomo, he first established himself in Lexington, Kentucky. Through the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s, he toured and recorded with various bands, including groups led by Hal Kemp, Bud Rice, Charlie Barnet, the Dorsey Brothers and Fletcher Henderson. During this period, he led a peripatetic existence as he lived in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York, California, Texas, New Orleans, and France. At times, he also worked as a chef, aviator and as a radio broadcaster. Following an arrest for robbery in 1937 in El Paso, Purvis served about three years in Huntsville Prison, where he directed the Rhythmic Swingers, which played radio broadcasts. After breaking his parole in 1940, he returned to prison for another six years and is thought to have taken his own life in 1962. In spite of his checkered life (even believed to be a mercenary at one time), he was one of the most innovative white jazz trumpeters in the 1920s and 1930s.